As the brouhaha over the zoning of the principal officers of the 10th National Assembly continues to rage on, it is important for Nigerians and NdiIgbo to look into the issue without a tincture of beclouding sentiments.
While I very much intend to dwell on the zoning itself per se , I will like a host carve out a large section of this article for the politics of the SouthEast relating it to the zoning itself and the consequences for our politics.
I am not an enthusiast of zoning, but as a realist and in view of the pervading political milieu presently experienced, such as the plurality of the Nigerian nation and the prevalence of social groups which still pander to the dictates of ethnicity and tribalism, zoning is yet a key to ensuring national unity and stability amongst our people.
Some have gone on to decry and disavow the recent zoning of the National Assembly principal offices by the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. The zoning had produced four persons as its preferred candidates for four major positions but this did not go down well with a number of other aspirants ,particularly those from the North Central who felt shortchanged since the zone did not zone any of four leading positions to the zone which had contributed immensely to the party’s success at the 2023 polls.
Asides the exclusion of the North Central from the zoning dividends there are protests from many who believe that zoning ought to have favored them. There are those who believe that the Senate Presidency should have been zoned to their zones,take for example, former Governor of Zamfara State, Yari Abdulaziz who has demanded that the slot should be zoned to the Northwest for its contribution to the APC’s victory and has declared his interest to become the Senate President even when he
Isn’t a ranking member in the forthcoming Senate. Yari, argues that it would be wrong for the South to have two key positions in the forthcoming administration,that is as president and as senate president,but forgets that same was the norm in the last administration and even when Obasanjo and Yar Adua were at the helm of affairs and thus there is nothing new about such an arrangement. Yari’s arguments are further flawed when we look at the religious background of the President and Vice President elects, both are Muslims, would it then be cheering news to have a Senate President too of the Muslim Faith? We may as well prepare the Nation for a civil war in the mould of what was experienced in Lebanon.
There is also Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, the man who has changed political parties like briefs all in his desire to be relevant politically. OUK as he is fondly called can be rightly described as your typical dyed in Nigerian “anywhere belle face politician” or “food is ready politician!” OUK has also insisted that the Senate Presidency should be the preserve of the SouthEast as well as his exclusive preserve,despite the dismal performance of the APC in his home state of Abia during the guber and state elections as well as his alleged anti-party activities in the state and zone. As someone who has watched him from the sidelines,it is safe to say that OUK’s kind of politics has largely been defined as politics of the self; one with no allegiance to any ideology or region, though he has always masqueraded such despicable politics for what many will call the Igbo agenda when it suits him. He huffs and puffs before retreating to a position that may guarantee his political survival whilst betraying those he had earlier hoodwinked
The Igbo intelligentsia of which I belong to cannot forgive how on two occasions he sabotaged Dr. Alex Ekwueme’s efforts to become President, again , while we were building up the claims for Igbo Presidency prior to the 2023 polls on the platform of the APC, this man who was never part and parcel of those who founded the APC came out to say there was nothing like zoning, perhaps to endear himself to certain powers that be, only to do a U-turn later and blame the APC for not zoning the ticket to the SouthEast, causing me to pen and publish the article , “ No tears for Orji Uzor Kalu” .
So similar to Yari’s arguments, that of his counterpart in OUK falls like a park of cards in the face of the reasons evinced for the zoning of the position to the South South, which produced more votes for the APC in the presidential election than in the SouthEast, which sought to put all its eggs in Labour Party’s basket. How then does the region want to benefit from the rewarding of offices when it gave little or nothing to the APC’s presidential triumph?
Now, despite such, the APC in its wisdom had zoned the position of Deputy Speaker to the SouthEast and nominated the person of Honourable Benjamin Okezie Kalu representing Bende Federal Constituency and present Spokesperson of the House of Representatives. Kalu’s nomination seems to offer that glimmer of hope on two fronts; the first being the fact that the SouthEast region of Nigeria, despite its hostility to the APC has not being marginalized, the second is that the nomination of Benjamin Kalu offers NdiIgbo and the SouthEast region a departure from the failed politics of our region,which has sought to recycle leaders from Ex this to ex that without any form of improvement upon the region
